1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tape cartridge management system and a tape cartridge, and more particularly, relates to a tape cartridge management system and a tape cartridge which use an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag storing management information.
2. Description of Relevant Art
In recent years, a system for conducting an inventory management and location management of a single tape cartridge by mounting an RFID tag (hereinafter, referred to as tag) on the tape cartridge has been developed. The system has been designed by considering existing products, that is, an external type of tag (hereinafter, referred to as external tag) mounted on an outside of the tape cartridge has been mainly used by considering workability at a user side.
Regarding the external tag, there is a chance that the tag which was once peeled off from a product is pasted on another product by accident since the tag is easily peeled off. For preventing the tag from such an improper using, an external tag having a structure to be broken when the tag is peeled off has been proposed in the past. Such a tag described in the above is disclosed, for example, in a paragraph [0012] of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-167240 and in paragraphs [0006], [0007] of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2001-256455.
In contrast with the above, for preventing the tag from being improperly used and for improving security, an internal type of tag (hereinafter, referred to as internal tag) mounted on an inside of a tape cartridge may be conceivable so that the tag can not be peeled off from outside.
However, if the external tag for existing products is entirely replaced with the internal tag, a cost for replacing the external tag becomes expensive and substantially large. Therefore, a procedure to replace the external tag with the internal tag, while using the conventional external tag, may be thought. During transition of the tag, since two types of tags exist, the management system is required to be configured so that the two types of the tag can be easily managed with a single management system.
On the other hand, if both of the internal and external tags are mounted on a single tape cartridge, the two tags simultaneously response, thereby resulting in confusion which information of the tags should be made effective.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a tape cartridge management system and a tape cartridge which can manage the tape cartridge with an external tag and the tape cartridge with an internal tag by a single tape cartridge management system, while the tape cartridge management system and tape cartridge eliminate the aforementioned issues.